In God we trust_ all others pay cash - Jean Shepherd [79]
Up ahead Duckworth’s arched back, as taut as spring steel, said nothing. His shako reached for the sky, his great plume waved on. He blew a long, single, hanging blast, holding his remaining baton at a high oblique angle over his head. Two short blasts followed, and he smartly commanded a Column Right. The drums thundered as we moved into a side street and headed back toward school. The parade was over. The wind was rising and it seemed to be getting colder. A touch of snow was in the air. Christmas was on its way.
XXV I RELATE THE STRANGE TALE OF THE HUMAN HYPODERMIC NEEDLE
The retired trombonist stood behind the bar with his shoulders thrown back, an old familiar light blazing in his eyes. He wore the look of a man on the mark; tensed, waiting for the sharp downbeat, lips slightly pursed for the opening blast of “Under the Double Eagle.” Gradually he relaxed, as we returned to the warm, moist, sudsy atmosphere of the friendly corner tavern.
“You know, Ralph, I don’t tell many people this, but once in a while I go down in the basement when nobody’s home, and I play my trombone. The lip is still there.”
He drummed his fingers in a rhythmic, quick cadence tempo on the polished mahogany to the pattern of our well-remembered and much envied, by the other bands, of course, March Cadence. It is not generally known outside of the marching band world that each band has great pride in its distinct March Cadence drum pattern. It can be identified by this sound just as surely as a set of fingerprints gives away an axe murderer.
“Well, Flick, there are times when I can feel an old, dull itch in my left shoulder. Especially when I’m watching football games on TV, and they come on with the half-time shows.”
“Ah, they got all them girls with them cowboy hats. You don’t see many good marching bands. Just a lot of bazooms, doing the Frug.”
“Times change, Flick.” Again the beer was sparking deep philosophical concepts. Flick continued, with a touch of bitterness in his voice:
“Fer Chrissake, there’s nothing funnier than a short, fat girl clarinet player wearing a band suit, trying to do a double-time quick countermarch.”
“It’s Showbiz, Flick. That’s what it is.” We were getting a bit maudlin.
“It’s Showbiz, Flick, it’s all Showbiz. They’re always doing this stuff like a salute to TV, or a salute to Richard Rodgers, or My Fair Lady, for God’s sake. Can you imagine what Duckworth woulda said if they had tried to foist off a Majorette on him, or what the hell do they call them—a Pom-Pom girl, or a Color Guard?”
“Plenty a bazooms.…”
“It’s Showbiz, Flick.”
We sat together, Flick now perched on his high stool, me on mine, staring grimly out into the middle distance.
“I’m watching one the other day, Flick. They must have had a band of about 30,000 pieces. They came out with more junk hanging on ’em. Horns, whistles, smoke bombs, sirens; these guys had it all, and I’ll be goddamned if they don’t start making a formation while this announcer on the TV says; ‘We are now going to pay a tribute to Doctor Kildare, that famous TV doctor.’ And you know what they made, Flick, in a formation while they were playing that theme song from that TV show?”
“A bedpan?” Flick guessed.
I knocked my beer over into my lap and leaped up, brushing the suds off the fine English flannel, the pride of my life. Flick grinned the self-contented grin of a man who knows he’s made a funny. He drew me another beer, cackling all the while.
“Hell, no! A bedpan woulda been great. I’d a cheered! What this band did was march around, and they make a big hypodermic needle. ’Covered the whole damn field! And then somebody blows a whistle and the plunger goes in, and the whole